Possession
by ForestLark
Summary: One photograph, three people. Spoilers for "Many Happy Returns."


**Title:** Possession

**Author:** ForestLark

**E-mail:**

**Rating:** K+

**Spoilers:** Through Ep. 21, "Many Happy Returns"

**Disclaimer: **Person of Interest is owned by CBS, and its characters are not mine. I'm just borrowing them, and not making any profit by it.

#

The first time Jessica touches the photo, it's one of a stack of prints from the pharmacy, thick glossy paper fresh and new under her fingers. The small but delightful excitement of flipping each photo to the back of the stack, revealing the next shot, smiling at the ones that turned out well.

It's October and John is back at the base. John is going to war. They won't say when yet, but she knows it, knew it as soon as he said he was going to reenlist. And when she flips to the shot of the two of them, smiling over their drinks, she is glad she asked the waiter to take their picture, glad it actually came out. That was Monday, before the world changed, and she is glad she has a reminder of what they looked like then.

The next day, she buys a picture frame on her way home from work. Nothing fancy, just a nice silver frame that she puts on her dresser before she goes into the kitchen, pours herself a glass of wine, and waits for John to call.

It stays on her dresser even after he returns from his first tour of duty in Iraq, after he tells her she shouldn't wait for him, she deserves better. And if every once and awhile she looks at it and feels a pang for what might have been, she is still glad to have it.

She only removes it when she starts dating Peter, wraps the frame in tissue paper and places it on the shelf in her closet. It stays in a box in a closet in the new house, until Peter breaks her wrist, and then she decides it's too incendiary to keep in this way. She pulls the photo out of the frame and slips it below the drawer of her jewelry box. She prays Peter never finds it, but she can't bring herself to get rid of it.

The last time Jessica touches the photo, it's when Peter has gone into the city on business, and she is safe. She slides open the drawer and pulls the photo out, the edges worn from the drawer sliding over them. Then she sinks down on the carpet and she cries great, heaving sobs, and she wants desperately to have made different choices in her life.

She thinks about calling John, even though she has no right to. She thinks about calling John because somehow she knows he will think she has a right to, even if it's been four years since they've spoken. Six days later, she is dead.

#

The first time Carter touches the photo, she knows, even if it doesn't quite reach conscious thought, exactly what she is going to find. She's known since the mother said the word "soldier," known in that basal, gut way that leaves the thinking brain struggling to catch up.

It catches up, and fast, and then rushes on ahead as she fingers the rough, torn edges of the photo paper. She can feel all the mysteries of New Rochelle, some of the more general mysteries of John, all clicking into place, all lining themselves up in neat solutions, a heady rush of knowledge.

There's a look John gets on his face sometimes, in and amongst the smirks and quips. Carter understands that look now. She knows what it's like to lose the person you love, the way the world feels like it drops from beneath you when they tell you, the desperate moments when you try to convince yourself it's not true, the lag before you cry, as the shock ebbs. To lose that person at the hands of another, to lose them knowing death was proceeded by years of pain and fear, this, thankfully, is not something she knows. But she can imagine.

She requests his personnel file because it's what she does. She gets curious and she hunts things down and she solves them. But with the file in her hands, she realizes this story, too, is something she's already known. His file is unremarkable, the story of any special forces soldier. She served with plenty of guys like him — hell, their paths might even have crossed at some point in Iraq. No, something happened, something that won't be in the file, that sent him careening on a path to the CIA and New Rochelle and this strange, sponsored vigilante justice.

So she shreds everything, knows it's too dangerous to keep them around. There are any number of people who might be searching her desk periodically — the CIA, the FBI, Fusco. And she feels a greater sense of protectiveness when it comes to John, now, although she won't hesitate to yell at him the next time he does something stupid.

The last time Carter touches the photo, it's to slide it into a little manila envelope. Her thumb catches on the dog-eared corner and she wishes it was in better condition, but at least it's something. She thinks of her own photo, tucked under the sun visor of her car, and how sometimes she just needs to take it out, sit there in the city streets and let that strange combination of sadness and comfort flow through her. Less often now than she used to, but she still hasn't figured out whether that's healing, or distraction. Perhaps it's a little of both.

#

The first time Reese touches the photo, it's when Carter slides the manila envelope across the diner table.

"I found this in New Rochelle," she says. "I thought you'd want to have it."

Just the name of the town stabs at him, but it's nothing compared to the feeling when he slides the photo out, and it all comes rushing back at him. The long drive to Mexico with Peter in the trunk, longing to drive the car off a bridge and drown them both. The look on the nurse's face when she told him and the struggle to react like an old friend, not to give in to the devastation until he was out of the hospital. The first time he listened to her voice mail and the hundreds of times he's heard it since. And then, finally, that night in Mexico, when everything seemed possible.

"Thank you," he whispers over the lump in his throat.

"I'm so sorry," Carter says, reaching across the table and touching his hand briefly, before she slips out of the booth.

Reese carefully slides the photo back inside the envelope and tucks it into his suit jacket. He finds himself continually checking for it on the subway ride home, because in the short time it's been in his possession, it's become proof of a sort. Proof that they existed, together, John and Jessica. Proof that they were happy.

Since he's been in the new apartment, he has done nothing to supplement Finch's version of decorating, which appears to be paying someone to buy out the Restoration Hardware catalog. But after he gets home and deposits the envelope safely on a weathered tabletop, he decides to go back out. He visits three stores before he finds a simple silver frame similar to the one he remembers from Jessica's dresser.

The last time Reese touches the photo, it's to place it in the frame. It's an odd contrast, the old dog-eared photo with its rough edges and the shiny new frame, but he doesn't care. He scans the vast apartment for somewhere to place it, finally settles on the desk.

It's been years since he's had a place that could be called a home, years since he's kept anything personal around. For awhile, the photo seems to burn white hot over there by the window, a strange, unnatural thing that draws his attention wherever he is in the apartment. Over time, though, he grows used to it, used to the rush of memories it triggers, the grief and the pain. And even, occasionally, the happiness.

[end]


End file.
